What it’s about: Shit hits the fan in the Laundry-verse, as the Sleeper in the Pyramid returns bearing the face of another old adversary, and all the world’s occult forces must rise in opposition to its grotesque crusade.
Notes:
- The Delirium Brief is like the Avengers of the Laundry-verse. Nearly every protagonist that featured in the past six or so books makes an appearance in this, even long-forgotten bit players like Iris from The Fuller Memorandum. The PHANGS, the elves and even some of the “superheroes” from Annihilation Score make an appearance. And let’s not forget Bob Howard, missing the past three books and now finally back in full Eater of Souls vainglory, once again the somewhat unreliable narrator of this book.
- In The Delirium Brief, our heroes are finally confronted by the greatest enemy of all – their own Government, who, driven by a very neoliberal desire to privatise the occult defense capabilities of the state, liquidate the Laundry in a hasty and ill-conceived move to curry public favour after the bungled elven invasion in Leeds. Except that the entity they are trying to outsource these functions to is controlled by a soul-eating eldritch horror who wants nothing more than to consume every living soul on the planet, and are presiding in a systematic dismantling of the occult defense infrastructure to enable that. A frightening and very clever parody of the very real desire by some quarters of the political spectrum to abdicate the functions of governance to private actors, leading to regulatory capture – except that this particular dysfunction has existential consequences.
- The book, apart from bringing together all its characters, also kind of executes a few odd plot retcons – like recasting Iris as a sleeper agent all along, and making the Mandate the Black Pharaoh – probably for the sake of maintaining overall series continuity – because the Laundry was probably not gestated as such a long series to start with. The jury’s still out on this one, but I suppose we will see if these plot threads start to bear real fruit in latter novels.
- The notion of the Senior Auditor afraid and at his wit’s end enough to welcome the rule of a lesser eldritch evil – to combat an infinitely worse one – is truly frightening in the context of the Laundryverse. Stross is not pulling any punches here on the severity of the existential crisis facing the world – and I personally can’t wait to see what happens next.
Verdict: Fiendishly clever, gripping, replete with quality Lovecraftian horror, and a satisfying culmination of books’ worth of buildup of characters and plotlines, The Delirium Brief is an explosive and bold entry of the Laundry Files novels.
I give this book: 4.5 out of 5 Continuity Operations warrant cards
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